The role of women in the American Revolution is understated and underappreciated. Patriot women were there - whether it was to provide moral and physical support, maintain the family farm or business, spying, or actual fighting. They wove desperately needed clothing for the half-naked American soldiers. They provided foodstuffs to starving columns that passed through towns and farms. And during an eight-year struggle, patriotic mothers sent many a young man or boy to the ranks. In addition to yearning and fighting for liberty, every American soldier yearned to return to their home, family, and wife. One could say these women were the heart of the rebellion.
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| The distaff side was critical to the war effort. |
Ann Hart is one such woman. Born Ann Morgan in 1735, the exact date is unknown. Nor is the exact location, although it is believed somewhere in Pennsylvania or North Carolina. Names were tricky back then, and the use of diminutives was widespread. Ann Hart was no exception, sporting the handle "Nancy," a common nickname for Ann at the time. According to accounts by contemporaries, Nancy was an imposing figure over six feet tall, well limbed, and red-headed. She was known for her fearlessness; the local Cherokees even called her Wahatche (war woman).
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| The Cherokee called her War Woman |
By the run-up to the War for Independence, Ann Morgan had married Benjamin Hart, and the couple settled along the Broad River in Wilkes County, Georgia, where land was fertile, cheap, and available. The year was 1771. Ann was relatively old when they married – thirty-six. Despite that, she gave birth to two daughters and six sons.
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| The cabin on the Broad River |
As rumor and legend will bump up against known facts, I should say Nancy is said to be a relative of famed explorer Daniel Boone. And she was a cousin to Daniel Morgan, famed leader of the corps of Virginia and Pennsylvania riflemen and victor of the Battle of the Cowpens (1781).
After they moved to Georgia, Benjamin joined a Georgian militia regiment. Nancy would also become a staunch patriot and wage her own war against Georgia Loyalists.
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| Benjamin joined the Georgia militia |
Nancy was feisty and quick-tempered, according to accounts. And she ran the Hart household with an iron will and an iron fist. So, when Benjamin Hart went off to follow drum, Nancy was the perfect woman to "hold the fort." Ironically, the drum soon would follow her.
The British retook the breakaway colony of Georgia in 1779 as the launching pad of their "Southern Strategy." British occupation did not always mean British control, especially in the northeast backcountry of Georgia, where locals had been squaring off with the Cherokee for years. The American struggle for independence was also a civil war, and unlike the 18th-century wars in Europe, civilians played a role throughout.
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| Battle of Kettle Creek by Jeff Trexler |
According to reports from both first and second sources, Nancy was variously a spy against the British forces in the area, a sniper of the same (she was reputed to be a crack shot), and an occasional combatant. Because of her size, it would have been easy for Nancy to dress in men's clothing and slip into British camps, as is alleged. Pretending to be crazy, she would observe activities and listen to conversations before slipping away and reporting back to local patriot militia leaders.
Also reputed to be a sniper, she may have taken long-distance shots at Loyalist and British patrols, couriers, and convoys trying to cross the Broad River. The war in the south had turned vicious, and sniping and ambush so frowned on in 18th-century warfare became common in the Carolinas and Georgia.
The British and their supporters must have suspected the strange woman because they took pains to keep their eyes on her activities, often coming by the farm to get food or check up on things. In one incident, Nancy was making soap in their cabin when one of her daughters discovered a Loyalist spying on them through a crack in the wall. When she told Nancy, the fiery redhead threw a ladle of the boiling lye through the gap, burning his eyes. As he howled in pain, the angry farm woman raced out, overpowered him, and tied him up. She eventually turned him over to the local patriot militia.
An account has Nancy carrying grain to the local mill when a gang of cowboys (Loyalist raiders) pulled her from the saddle and tossed her to the earth. As they made off with her horse, Nancy dusted off the dirt and carried her heavy grain bag to the mill on foot.
Some accounts put our southern hellfire at the 1779 Battle of Kettle Creek, but that is pure speculation. But the most famous of her exploits seems right on target. A half-dozen Loyalist militiamen showed up at her farm, stopping for food while pursuing a rebel. They insisted Nancy prepare a turkey. Since they were armed and ready to mete out punishment on a patriot wife, she had no choice but to submit to their demand.
But the Loyalists made one big mistake. They neatly stacked their muskets near the door when they entered the cabin to sit at the dinner table. Nancy went to work with the table set and the food going down in mouthfuls. She slipped some of the muskets through a hole in the cabin wall. Nancy kept the food and drink coming, and once the men were sufficiently lubricated, she seized one of the muskets she left in the cabin and leveled the barrel on her visitors.
Glaring at them with a Brown Bess at full cock, she ordered them not to move. Refusing to be taken by a woman (and under the influence), one Loyalist made a move on her. That's all it took. Nancy squeezed the trigger, and the hammer slammed into the pan, striking the powder and sending a plug of lead into his chest. Another Loyalist lunged at her, but Nancy had grabbed another musket and blasted him. She had little trouble convincing the remainder to sit quietly at the table until help arrived. When her neighbors and husband appeared, they decided to shoot the prisoners. But Nancy refused. Instead, she demanded they be hung from a nearby tree.
This tale was corroborated in the early 19th century when the remains of a half dozen men were dug up at the farm – four with broken necks.
Like so many Americans, the post-war period was one of transition and movement. In the late 1790s, Nancy and her husband moved the family to Brunswick, Georgia. When Benjamin died there in 1800, Nancy decided to return to her former home on the Broad River. Unfortunately, their cabin had been washed away by a flood.
With the farmhouse gone, she moved in with one of her sons, John Hart, and his family along the Oconee River in Clarke County near Athens, Georgia. In 1803, Nancy moved with John and his family to Henderson County, Kentucky, to live near relatives. The fighting lady spent the remainder of her life in Henderson. When she died in 1830 at 93, they buried Nancy in the family plot.
Our "Hart of the South" was commemorated by the state she fought so hard to help liberate. A Georgia highway, city, lake, and county are named after her. And the Daughters of the American Revolution recognized this fighting lady by erecting a replica of her cabin on the Broad River using some of the original stones.
